1II.]

Gravitation, Physico-chemical Laws.

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We started then with the fundamental axiomatic truth of our consciousness, I think, and I know that I think. We found also that we-I-could cause certain phenomena, do certain things, the prime moving cause of which was my will; I willed, and that was for many a result, a first cause. Thus we found, as the very beginning of all our knowledge, a perception of forces,—forces of conscious minds. Looking beyond our minds, we saw what men call matter, but no one could tell us what matter is; from the most superficial observer to the profoundest scientist, we could find nothing but a description of phenomena produced by a variety of forces, acting through something which came from somewhere, and which we call matter. And this matter is to be found from the most distant fixed star, through suns and systems, in plants, animals, and man. Science tells us what wonderful things are done with this matter by the law of gravitation, but can tell us no more about the law of gravitation than about matter; only that matter is carried round and round in just such a way as if such a force were actually there. And that regular way of acting or being acted upon they call the law of gravitation, and we can get no nearer. They can tell of motion, but nothing of the force that made the motion. And then they tell us of the wonderful workings of other forces, taking matter, making it into solids, liquids, gasses, crystals and a thousand other indescribably beautiful and wonderful things, and they tell us that these are the phenomena of matter, acted upon by physicochemical laws or forces. But after all they can only tell us that this is the way that that indefinable something called matter acts or is acted upon, just as if there were certain fixed forces working in a certain regular way. That regularity of way of acting they call law; but of the forces themselves the best scientists know nothing, only the phenomena.

A step further and we come to where a new set of phenomena showed, not new matter, but a new force, which laid hold

144

Laws of Vitality and Instinct.

[LECT.

of gravitation, and physico-chemical forces, and made them serve as hewers of wood and drawers of water, chained them to do her bidding, while she took hold of matter and rejected matter at her sweet will. Vitality, life, produced phenomena, whose wonderful variety and motions science unfolds and delights us with; but science gets no nearer matter, and no nearer the forces, can tell us nothing about life-forces, whether in single germ, or in system-building after a fixed plan, only about motions and phenomena produced as if there were some such force, and that way of acting or being acted upon, they call law-laws of vitality.

A higher class of living things then shewed a different class of phenomena, animal movement, only to be explained by different forces having come in; but these forces still are inscrutable to science. Only the phenomena can be tabulated. And the highest phenomena of the law of animal life we saw to be instinct, by which animals received, when needed, as naturally and unvaryingly as their teeth or their hair, a perfect stock of impulse, and knowledge, and skill, exactly suited to the structure of their bodies, and the functions of their organs or the needs of their race-a natural wisdom which transcends all learning or experience. Here again science can tabulate facts, and marvellous phenomena, but can tell us nothing about the forces.

The next step brings us to man himself. We find in his body that wonderful, not yet definable thing called matter, subject to laws, laws of gravitation, modified by physico-chemical laws, these controlled and enslaved by vital laws, and these accompanied by certain instinctive laws, with a great many things similar to the higher classes of animals-bones answering to bones, organs to organs, functions to functions. And if we should suppose the human race to be extinct, unable to say a word for itself, having left only fossil bones behind, and then that these bones should fall into the hands of some morpho

III.]

"Man's place in Nature.”

145

logist of a succeeding race, but of the species Huxley & Co., he certainly would put us all down as belonging to the genus ape, and the species anthropos,-a species that did more walking than climbing. And the matter would rest there, as scientifically settled as that indubitable horse-race from that primordial protohippos of the size of a fox, on which Mr. Huxley has ridden out from tertiary depths through quaternary epochs into the stables of the present gigantic steed.

And even as it is, Mr. Huxley seems very anxious to establish a close relationship between man and the monkey, as you will all have perceived in his charming little book entitled Man's Place in Nature. That book may show very clearly where man is placed in the nature known to the morphologist, but it certainly tells us nothing about the Nature of the Man. And that is precisely where the great difference comes in. If a man is placed in a stable, that does not make him a horse; and if I happen to be in a house of flesh and bones not unlike a monkey, that does not make me a monkey or anything like a monkey, in my essential nature or character.

The mind is the measure of the man, and here we come back to the point from which we started. Man has a mind; I think, I know I think; I can speak for myself, and can rescue myself from the morphologists, or any other "ist" who undertakes to describe me, but leaves me out of the description. I almost wish that the other animals could only have a chance to speak their minds too; but here I am reminded that they would probably speak their mind if they only had a mind to speak. But man has a mind to speak, and speaking his mind, he tells you that mind is not matter, and that science can find no bridge between matter and mind; he tells you, and true science echoes the word with emphasis, that Spencer's philosophico-evolution bridge from matter and force to mind is a most lamentable logical failure; that Bain's "double-faced somewhat"

146

Matter and Mind differ

[LECT.

is, like all other double-facedness, very much lacking in truth, and that mind differs from matter and force-yes, throwing in for mere argument's sake, if you will, matter and gravitation, and physico-chemical forces, and vital forces, and animal movement, and instinct, all thrown into one evolved materialistic bundle,and yet mind, consciousness, is more completely distinct from it all, towers more grandly above it all, than your cloud-piercing Fujisama differs from and towers above the beating waves that lave the scattered sands of Fuji's feet.

Let us make a few comparisons and see where mind differs from matter. (1) Matter and mind are seen through their phenomena.1 These phenomena appear to us in certain formelements. Events involve time, effects causes, propositions have respect to truth. Now the ultimate form-element of matterphenomena has respect to space; it is physical,—you must place it somewhere. Mental acts have a different and exclusively peculiar form-element, consciousness-something thought. Here is an impassible gulf, two sets of facts as completely incommunicable, and uninterchangeable as the qualities of a stone and a thought, a block of wood and a truth.

(2) Again there is a difference in the ultimate laws which control the two sets of facts. In the material world we have forces, fixed in direction and degree; in the mind, spontaneity. In matter forces are causes and produce certain effects; cause equal to effect, effect equal to cause; each cause the effect of some previous cause; each effect the cause of some future effect. The thoughts of mind stand in no such relation, measured and definable, to the conscious powers; they may be less or more; they do not cause truth but seek to discern it. The antecedents

1 For a fuller discussion of the matter of these paragraphs, see Christian Philosophy Quarterly, 1883, "Mind and Matter, their Immediate Relation," by Bascom.

III.]

in every Essential Particular.

147

in the material world are causes, in the mental world, premises; in reference to thoughts, reasons; in reference to actions, motives. These things cannot be legitimately confounded.

(3) Prevailing laws are diverse. The prevailing idea of law to-day is that of an eternal, immutable, irrefragable way or force or plan, according to which all things must move. And that is correct with regard to the material world. But there are no such laws in the mental, spiritual world. Physical laws are the fixed working of causes. Mental laws are constantly changing, are laws of logic, and may be disobeyed. The laws of rational beings refer to rational welfare and may be disregarded. The laws of thought, of rational action, of truth, of virtue, differ by an impassable gulf from the laws of forces, or physical causes and of mechanics.

(4) Another distinction lies in the fact that the material world is the source of diverse impressions-of difference; the other is the source of constructive ideas-of agreement. The physical world gives variety, disconnection, each thing separate from others in space and time. Mind lays hold of the varied phenomena, searches for relations, fixes a system, constructs a unity. Consciousness brings all together, unites them in conceptions, conclusions, constructions, finds out the facts of cause and effect: deals with these things as a master deals with tools. And these two poles of matter and mind thus diverse, can never be confounded without a hopeless collapse, a universal jargon.

Now within the range of consciousness we found three great departments, the mental, the moral, and the spiritual. The first answering to the I think, I will, in all its possibilities; the second to the I ought in all its developments; the third is that which "seeks after God if haply we may find Him," and when properly led it finds Him "not far from every one of us." It was seen that the instincts in man answering to this three